Remembering the Years
by Rae-Prite
Summary: Beth has a tradition. One day every year she remembers her life- the good, the bad and the ugly, so that she can honor her past and learn from it. She prefers to do it alone, but is that really going to stop Frank and Joe? Continuance of my HB story arc
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Name: **Rae Prite

**Title of Story: **Remembering the Years

**Type of Story: **AU

**Rating of Story: **PG-15

**Characters in Story: **Joe, Frank, OC's Beth Hardy, Tim Taylor

**Warnings: **Child abuse, intense situations, language, blood, angst… _extreme_ angst (You have been warned!)

**Plot Blurb: **One day a year, Beth takes some time to remember everything about her life. She does it so she will never forget the lessons she has learned, no matter how cruel. She prefers to do it alone, to remember in peace, but who's going to convince Frank and Joe?

**Splash Page: **None.

**Special Notes: **Takes place two weeks after "The Unsolved Case" and acts as a filler story between it and the next adventure. If you can't stand to read of child abuse in any form then I give you this warning: this isn't the story for you.

**Chapter 1**

Beth sat with her arms around her bent knees on the steps of the back porch, watching butterflies, bees and dragonflies lazily drift through the yard. The hot sun warmed the back of her t-shirt, and she wished – not for the first time – that she could wear a tank top or a bikini again. A light breeze brushed past her, playfully ruffling her wavy brown locks.

She sighed. The day was beautiful – there was no doubt about that – but her current line of thought was anything but peaceful. She didn't do this often, and she wasn't sure why she chose today to do it, but it was too late to stop the process.

She was remembering.

Beth normally kept the memories buried deep inside her head, filed away in a forgotten cabinet that gathered more dust with every year that passed. But once a year, just for one day a year, she let herself remember everything about her life – the good, the bad and the ugly.

She did it methodically, like she was reviewing an essay before its submission. But she also let herself feel the emotions associated with the memories, not letting the tradition become robotic in nature.

It was a painful process, and took a whole day to complete. It was one whole day of misery in a year full of amnesia – surely she could do that? It was the least she could do. She spent a day wallowing in the pain, when somewhere out there, someone else was stuck in pain forever. She owed them that much.

Beth started with her earliest, fuzziest memories, the ones that she sometimes questioned whether they were real or if they were half-remembered dreams. She didn't fight the memories; just let them play out before her eyes like a movie, pretending all the while that her eyes were smarting from pollen.

After all, she didn't and wouldn't cry – she was tough, no matter what anyone said... especially him.

_She was three, wearing a shirt, jean overalls and tiny sneakers with Beauty and the Beast on them. She was coloring, bent over the paper seriously. Her then curly, short brown hair was tickling her ears and the nape of her neck, the bangs falling over her forehead._

_A door somewhere slammed open and shut, and she looked up to see Tim come in, three days of stubble growing on his face and his hair disheveled. He looked tired – she could see that much at three – but it wouldn't be for a long time before she would realize that on that day, he also had dark bruises on his arms, and a bit of dried blood at the corner of his mouth._

_Tim opened the fridge and grabbed one of the glass bottles that she'd been told never to touch, because they were for grown-ups. He twisted off the cap, tossed it in the trash and took a long swig. He sighed afterwards._

_He caught her eye, and gave her a long sad look. "Hey little girl," he greeted quietly. Beth never understood why he hardly ever used her name when he talked with her. He always called her 'kid', or 'little girl' or something else. Later she would know he was trying to distance himself from her… but not now. Now she was too innocent to wonder for long on the subject._

"_Hi Uncle Tim," She answered, brightly. She smiled very widely at him, "I made you something!"_

_He snorted and walked over. She didn't see at the time that he was limping. "What's that?"_

_She held up her drawing proudly, her dark blue eyes desperately seeking approval. "Here!"_

_Tim took the picture from her small hands, eyes roving over the scene tiredly. "What is it?" He asked, trying to keep the patience in his voice._

"_It's us!" Beth chirped in her high soprano. "We're at the park. I'm on the swings, and you're pushing me."_

_His eyes got an odd light in them. "Who's the woman on the left? The one with the, uh, wings?"_

_A solemn look came onto the toddler's face. "That's mommy. She's an angel – so we can't see her, but she's there."_

_Tim pressed his lips into a tight line. "Where did you hear that?"_

"_Mrs. Willson at Sunday school told me," Beth frowned, her tone uncertain. She could feel her uncle's anger and it frightened her._

_He gave her a hard look, before crumpling the picture into a ball. "Your mother is not an angel! She's not in heaven, and you're not going back to that Sunday school again!"_

_Her lip trembled as he threw the picture into the trash. "But –?"_

"_Go to your room!" He nearly snarled._

_Beth sniffled and ran quickly out of the living room. She stopped by the trash can for a moment, and looked back. Tim was sitting in his easy chair, his back to her, already engrossed in a sports show. She darted her eyes between the picture and her uncle for a moment, then grabbed the crumbled picture and ran on to her room._

_She closed the door softly, and then spread the creased paper out on the bed, smoothing the wrinkles carefully. She stared at the angel on the paper, the one with her eyes and hair._

"_If you're not in heaven, mommy, where are you?" She sniffed and let the big tears fall, carefully holding back the wails that would make Uncle Tim angry as she buried her face in her pillow. He always said he hated to hear her cry…_

Beth frowned at the bright green grass, noting her vision was blurring the blades together into one mound of green mush. For once, she didn't wipe the tears away. She understood now why Tim had treated her like an alien – he couldn't get close, it would've made it harder to try and kill her.

She still wasn't clear on why Tim had been trying to kill her, but she suspected it had to do with the phone call she was never supposed to hear, as well as why he would sometimes come home bloodied and bruised and more pissed off than usual. Someone obviously wanted her dead, and had been using Tim to do it, but it remained a mystery for now as to who and why.

Without consciously thinking about it, she felt herself drifting into the next memory. Her brain wasn't done torturing her just yet…

_Today was her birthday. She was five years old today. She knew this because her kindergarten teacher had made a batch of cupcakes for her and her class, they'd sung "Happy Birthday" to her and she got to pick out the book for story time. It had been a good day, but it had made her wonder._

_Uncle Tim hadn't told her it was her birthday – in fact, he'd said nothing at all, because he'd left for work before she was up._

_She'd had to make a bowl of cereal all by herself, which had been hard because the cereal was kept in a higher cabinet, and the milk had been heavy. She'd done it though, and packed her lunch and gotten on the school bus all by herself. She guessed that that was what being five meant – taking care of yourself without help._

_When she came in the door, she saw Tim slumped over at the table, a shot glass and a half-empty bottle filled with a brown liquid next to him. She frowned._

_That was the bottle of smelly juice that was for grown-ups – it was more forbidden to touch than the glass bottles of beer; she could read enough now to know their name._

_Beth also knew that when adults drank too much of either, they started acting funny. They couldn't walk, or talk right, and they sometimes giggled a lot about silly things, or they got angry easily. She really didn't want to stick around to find out which of these her uncle would display, so she quietly shut the door, locked it and tiptoed to her room._

_She was halfway there when her uncle stirred. He blearily blinked open his eyes and sat up, looking around the kitchen/dining room dazedly. His dark eyes finally focused on his niece and he frowned._

"_What are you doing home?" He demanded his voice slurred and gruff with sleep and alcohol._

_Beth swallowed back the lump she felt rising in her throat. "School's over, Uncle Tim, and I came home on the school bus." She replied timidly._

_Tim blinked again, and in slow motion swiveled his head to the clock on the wall. It took him another several moments to read the time, and then he sighed and ran a hand over his face and through his hair. "Why didn't you wait for me to pick you up?" He asked._

_She frowned, "I did." She said voice hesitant, "I waited an hour, but you didn't come. I had a quarter in my pocket, so I took the city bus home, 'cause the school buses were all gone."_

_That statement, quietly done as it was, certainly got his attention. He bolted upright and stared at her with such a fierce look that she felt herself shrinking back towards the peeling papered walls in fear. "You took the CITY bus?" He shouted._

_Tears welled in Beth's sapphire eyes. "Y-yes. I sat up front by the driver, and got off at the closest stop to here, but I-I had to walk a bit. I'm, I'm sorry. I just wanted to get home." Her voice was watery._

"_Do you have any idea what could've happened to you? You could've been killed, you stupid brat!" Tim yelled, standing erect from the table abruptly, and towering over her quivering form._

"_I-I just," She stuttered._

"_Just what? Just thought you could go and get yourself killed, is that it? Do you have any damn idea what would happen to me if you got abducted or murdered? I'D be dead – that's what!" Tim screamed._

_Suddenly, too fast for her to register what had happened, he backhanded her violently. Her head whipped around and her cheek exploded with pain._

_Beth screamed, tearing running full force down her face. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She cried, cowering in fear, sobbing in pain-filled delirium as she begged silently for the pain to go away._

_Tim huffed loudly and sneered, "You are pathetic! No wonder your father didn't want you! I can't even stand the sight of you!" That said he turned swiftly around, or as swiftly as you can when you're still slightly drunk, grabbed his keys from the hook and left the apartment, slamming the door so hard it shook the thin walls._

_She ran and stumbled up the stairs, eyes blinking furiously to be able to see through the wall of water. Finding her door, she opened and closed it swiftly, then threw herself on the bed and cried her little heart out._

_Today, Bethany Taylor turned five, and today her nightmares truly became her reality._

Fifteen year old Beth Hardy touched her cheek gently, as if she could still feel the sting of the slap. That had been the first time Tim had raised a hand against her, but it most certainly hadn't been the last.

Just as another pair of tears fell from her eyes and soaked her jeans, the sound of the back French doors opening reminded her that she wasn't completely alone today. Her dad was meeting with the police again, still trying to track down which hole Tim had crawled into. Her mom was at the library, doing her volunteer shift behind the catalogue desk.

That had left Beth home with just her brothers, both of who – she'd assumed – would be distracted and busy with last minute essays (Frank) and graduation preparations (Joe) all day. She'd thought that meant she would be left to entertain herself for the day – or more accurately to be able to be moody and a crying mess in peace... apparently not though.

"Hey Beth, it's getting to be lunch time. You want me to make you something, Kiddo?" Joe asked, poking his head out.

Beth swallowed, hoping her voice sounded normal as she shook her head. "Not right now, thanks. I'll make something later."

Evidently, the tears had made enough of an impact on her vocal chords that Joe noticed. Then again, Joe seemed notice everything. "You okay, Kiddo? You sound like you've got a frog in your throat or something."

The door creaked opened further before shutting, and Joe's bare feet padded across the wooden deck to stand next to her.

Beth tucked her head down and away from him, hugging her knees tighter and swallowing thickly. "I'm fine Joe." She lied, "I think it's just allergies or something."

Joe stood there for a second frowning. He sat down next to her on the deck stairs and put a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Look at me, Beth."

Beth ignored the request while setting her jaw and silently wishing that her brother would lose interest and leave. No such luck.

"Beth," His baritone was more demanding this time. "C'mon, look at me."

Sighing, Beth picked up her head and slowly swiveled it to meet his gaze. "Happy?" She snapped quietly, angry that anyone was seeing her like this.

Joe only gaped at her for a moment, before his gaze melted into genuine concern and worry. "Allergies my ass, what's wrong?" There was an edge of frustration in his voice that she had lied to him.

She turned away and glared at the trees on the edge of the Hardy property, "Doesn't matter."

"How can it not matter?" He demanded.

She rolled her eyes, "I'm just in a crappy mood today, alright? Not anything to do with you or anyone else, just something I gotta work through on my own." She expected him to drop it after that, but the universe was being stubborn today.

"What do you have to work through?" He asked a bit incredulous. Then in a gentler tone, "Can't I help you?"

Beth looked down at her grubby sneakers as she shook her head. "No. I have to do it on my own. Just give me some space, okay? I'll be right as rain by tomorrow." Done with the conversation, she got up and wandered off the porch towards the old tree house in the giant tree in their yard.

Joe watched her climb the ancient wood rungs nailed into the tree until she disappeared through the trap door. There was a deck you could step out on from the tree house itself, but the younger teen had apparently ignored it to sit inside the small building.

He frowned. What was that about? He shook his head and stood, half thinking of following her, before he got an idea. He took one more look at the tree house, where through the cutout window he could see just the top of a brown head, before dashing back inside the house.

This bore serious investigation.

HBxBH

"You're sure she's not just worried about Dad finding Tim Taylor?" Frank asked from his seat at the desk, laptop open in front of him with an essay in the process of being edited visible on the screen.

Joe frowned. He was sitting with his back against the wall on Frank's bed, fingering the afghan he was sitting on absently. "I really don't think so. Beth didn't look worried – she looked almost like she was in pain."

"Did she have any scrapes or cuts on her?" Frank asked reasonably.

Joe half glared, "dude, does our sister seem like the type of girl who'd freak out over a broken nail?"

Frank had the decency to blush. "Well, perhaps not, it was just a thought."

The boys were quiet for a moment.

"What do we do?" Joe said eventually with a sigh.

Frank ran a hand through his hair and sighed as well, feeling at a loss. "I'm not sure, but I suppose the best option would be to try and get her to talk to us. It's not healthy for her to bottle up those emotions alone." He frowned. "Does it occur to you that she's never really talked about her life in Queens before – I mean not in detail, really?"

Joe rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, actually she had a nightmare her first night here. She said she dreamed that _jackass_," he spat, "was sitting on top of her beating her to a pulp, and mocking her. She said she'd lived in fear of that happening for years, but…"

"Love how you failed to mention that until now," Frank remarked, then sighed and raised an eyebrow. "But?"

The younger Hardy winced and frowned, "the inflection of her voice seemed to indicate that he'd beat her before… a lot. I'm sure you saw that split lip and the bruises on her arms two weeks ago?"

Frank nodded slowly. The mysterious girl's lip had healed significantly since her arrival, and her bruises were healing, though more slowly. "You're thinking this has to do with Beth's home life with Tim?"

Joe shrugged uncomfortably. "What else could it be?"

Frank nodded. His brother was making a lot of sense, "Abuse, especially from someone who's supposed to be family, can cause a lot of psychological scars. Maybe Beth is just dealing with some particular scar today – one that we can't see on her."

"So, what do we do?" Joe repeated impatiently. If his sister was going through emotional trauma, he would be damned if she had to go through it alone.

Frank swiveled around, clicked the save button on his document before shutting down his computer. He turned back to face Joe as he walked out of his room, "we play psychologists."


	2. Chapter 2

**Remembering the Years**

**Chapter 2**

Beth sighed and swiped at her nose with her arm, feeling like a toddler as she did so. She'd lost track of how long she'd been sitting in the tree house, but it had been long enough for her to finish elementary school memories and start in on middle school.

She'd really lost her composure on that last memory. It had been sixth grade, and her deaf best friend Mitch Sanders, was being picked on violently at school, with the end result that Beth had been suspended for a week for breaking one bully's arm and another bully's nose. They'd deserved it, the snot-nosed jerks, and she wouldn't have taken her actions back for the world, but the suspension had led to a sprained wrist of her own from Tim.

Beth fingered her left wrist. The limb still had the slightest out of place bulge caused by it being twisted backwards behind her back; it was hardly noticeable to anyone else, but she always saw it, giving her another reminder that she would never be completely normal.

She was staring so intently at her wrist, that she didn't hear two sets of footsteps climbing up to the old tree house. Suddenly though, she felt eyes watching her and swiveled her head sharply to see Frank and Joe standing just by the trap door.

Beth scowled reflexively. "I told you Joe, I'm just having a bad day. I didn't need you to go and run to Frank and tattle on me," she sneered slightly, her defensive walls flashing up to prevent an unwanted leak of emotion like the earlier one.

If there was one thing she'd learned the hard way, it was to never wear your figurative heart on your proverbial sleeve – you'd only get punched in the arm… so to speak.

She mentally shook her head at the muddled metaphor. She wasn't making sense anymore even to herself, not that it surprised her – it was turning into a very long, stressful day and it was only going to get worse.

Joe rolled his eyes. "You give Frank far too much credit! Keep talking about him like he's a responsible adult, and you'll suck what little fun there's still left in him right out."

He grinned, but Beth only looked away and tightened her hold on her bulky wrist involuntarily. "Whatever," she muttered.

Frank slapped his brother upside the head and gave him a slight glare that clearly said, 'you're not helping!'

Joe rubbed his head and shrugged, responding with a glance of his own, 'sorry! I thought it would at least get her smiling!'

Frank's dry look gave him the sarcastic answer, 'it didn't work.'

Returning his attention to the situation at hand, the eldest Hardy studied his sister's stoic mask carefully, analyzing it for any kind of crack or chip in its armor. He walked over to her, ducking his head a few times to avoid rafters in the roof that conflicted with his six-one stature, and sat down beside her carefully.

Joe followed his example and sat on Beth's other side.

For a long time, none of the Hardy offspring moved except to breathe, or spoke.

"Is there a reason a girl can't get a little privacy around here?" Beth eventually asked waspishly.

"You aren't changing, and you're not in the bathroom, so survey says no," Joe responded dryly, only half kidding.

"Beth, we're worried about you. You've been really depressed and moody all day. We just want to make sure that you're okay, and if there's anything we can do to help..." Frank said gently, trying to appeal to her with little success.

"Like I told Joe," she answered tiredly, "I'm fine. I just have a lot on my mind, and I'm in a bad mood. I appreciate the offer, but you guys just really can't help me on this one, okay?"

"It would help us out if we knew exactly what 'this one' was, kiddo," the middle child of the family said quietly.

Beth stood up abruptly and looked out of a window, face neutral, but eyes beginning to smart with the tears of pain and loneliness.

She did hate sometimes that she had to bear this annual burden alone. There were so many times that she wished she could simply have someone to talk to, someone who would listen without judgment or pity; someone with empathy and quiet understanding.

But no… this was her burden to bear, and she would never wish it upon another living soul. Harsh as it was, slightly deluded as it might sound, she simply could not weigh down anyone else with her pain. Not only was it slightly humiliating to have to admit that she had this tradition – important as it was to her – she had also never been one to reveal her true feelings so easily. Bottling it up was how she dealt with the pain. This was her day for liberating herself of that pain, and it was something she had to do alone.

"Beth? Squirt, are you okay?" Frank asked tentatively, not sure how thin the ice he was treading on was.

Beth swallowed and bowed her head for a moment. "I'll be fine. I just need to be alone."

The boys exchanged glances carefully. They came to a sort of agreement a moment later.

"Beth?" Joe started slowly, "We were wondering, well, if maybe you were worried about whether Dad would find Tim?"

His sister turned abruptly, looking puzzled. "Why would I be worried about that? Tim may not be a complete bonehead, but for the most part he's got a lower IQ than a garden snail – even if Dad wasn't a world renowned detective, he could still find that scumbag. Heck, my fifth grade gym teacher could find him, and that dude couldn't find his way out of the equipment closet!" She chuckled, but the sound was only halfhearted and very hollow.

Frank pursed his lips. "Does your mood have to do with testifying at the trial?"

Beth rolled her eyes. "No, I know it's important and I can do it. Of course I wish I didn't have to, but I'll deal. No big." Although she put on a brave face and a nonchalant attitude about the trial, she was admittedly nervous considering she'd have to talk about the very subject she was avoiding with her brothers currently.

"Is there something else then? Something that's got you worried that we're not aware of? C'mon Beth! Throw us a bone here!" Joe pleaded, not registering the horrified look that flashed through his sister's eyes.

Suddenly Beth wasn't standing in a tree house in a quiet neighborhood of Bayport, having a disagreement with her brothers. Quite suddenly, she was back in Queens, and in the middle of yet another memory.

"_Hey! Hey, wait up!" A voice shouted down the hallways of the high school._

_It took Beth a second to realize that the voice was speaking in her direction, although who on earth would be talking to her, she had no idea. This stupid school had made it painfully obvious she was a freak that no one wanted to be seen with._

_She stopped in her tracks in the thinning out hallway and turned halfway around to look back. She held her Algebra I and English book close to her chest protectively, just in case. She knew either textbook was thick, hard and really heavy – the perfect impromptu weapon._

_Running up through the crowd towards her was a boy with short, curly black hair and startling green eyes that were fixed solely on her. He was tall and wiry, his hands huge and callused from hard work and his skin tanned from working in the sun. Beth could tell right off the bat that he was older than she, at least by three years._

_Not surprising, since everyone was older than she, here. She'd skipped two grades to land in high school at twelve, making her into more of a freak than ever before. Hence the reason why everyone treated her like she was a leper, which only added to her curiosity of why this boy was giving her the time of day, unless of course he was just another jerk on a mission to humiliate her._

_He finally caught up to her, short of breath but smiling in a friendly fashion. "Hey, you're in Mr. McFern's class right?"_

_Beth nodded mutely, tucking a strand of wavy brown hair behind her ear as she scanned the hallways covertly to see if there was an ambush hiding somewhere – it didn't hurt to make sure she wasn't going to be sneaked up on. "Mm-hmm," she murmured._

_After all the fighting she'd done in middle school, which had landed her with an injury at home for every fight, she was now under the policy that unless someone started something she was going to be as 'meek as a mouse' – Tim's words, not hers. She didn't like it, but it meant less pain for her, something she was more than willing to bargain for._

_He held up a binder she hadn't even noticed he was carrying. "You left this by your seat when you rushed out. I've never seen any freshman move that quickly," he chuckled._

_She tentatively took the binder from him, acting like it might bite her as she tucked it in with her books. "Thanks," she mumbled._

_He smiled. "No problem. I'm Andy, by the way." He stuck his hand out, but she only stared at the appendage strangely._

"_Um, it's called a handshake – I'm not going to punch you or anything," Andy laughed nervously, rubbing his neck with the hand he had stuck out._

_Beth fought hard against a flinch when he said 'punch', but her mouth still grimaced slightly. She glared at him in annoyance, wondering why he hadn't yelled 'psych!' or something. There was no way that he was just being nice – no way. No one was nice without an ulterior motive, they just weren't._

"_What the hell do you want from me?" she snapped, narrowing her eyes._

_For a moment, he looked startled. "Uh, nothing – I just wanted to…"_

"_Just wanted to what?" she cut him off, "have your chance at degrading the new dork? Because, you know, she can't possibly feel bad enough about herself yet. She needs to be reminded that she's on the very lowest rung of the social ladder, and will never be worth anything! Well thanks, jackass, mission accomplished!"_

_Andy stared blankly as Beth turned on her heel and stalked off down the hallway to class, her eyes smarting and her chest aching. Why couldn't they just leave her alone?_

_Two seconds later, there was an indignant call of, "Hey!" and she heard Andy's sneakers chasing after her._

_Beth, suddenly seized with panic, bolted down the hallway, dodging straggler students and turning corners so quickly that she rapidly lost track of where she was. Getting to class was now the farthest thing from her mind._

_She turned a corner and was abruptly confronted with a dead end, the wall in front of her covered in a row of lockers. "Damn it!" she muttered, slightly out of breath._

_If she got into a fight in her first week of school, detention wouldn't be the worst of her problems – she had no doubt that Tim would follow through on his threat to send her into a coma if she came home with so much as a scratch._

"_There you are!" Andy's panting voice startled her, and she whirled around to see him leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. Obviously, despite his long legs, he was no long distance runner. "Damn you can run fast," he mumbled, pulling an inhaler from his pocket and taking in a deep puff of medication._

"_Look, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you mad. Just, just don't hit me, okay? Please I can't get in trouble for fighting!" she pleaded, backing up until she was pressed against the lockers, clutching the books and binder tightly to her chest. She swallowed, struggling with the panic rising up in her throat._

_Andy frowned. "What are you –?"_

"_Okay, okay! You can hit me if you want, just make sure it's somewhere no one can see, please!" Beth knew, somewhere in the back of her head, that she was babbling like an idiot and she never sounded like this – even when trying to calm Tim down._

_Andy held up his hands in a soothing manner quickly, "Hey, hey, easy – I'm not going to hit you! I just wanted to talk to you is all."_

_She still regarded the older boy warily. "About what?"_

"_Well, for starters, I wanted to know why you thought I was going to verbally or physically assault you," he stated, taking a few experimental steps forward with his hands still up._

_Beth squirmed uncomfortably and attempted to move back more into the metal lockers without much success. "Everyone hates me here – they all think I'm a freak. Several of them have already tried to get their point across in a very… direct manner. I can't get into trouble for fighting, I just can't." She spoke softly, still looking fearfully for an attack._

_Andy frowned. "You don't look like a freak to me. You look like any other normal fourteen-year-old girl." Without Beth realizing it, he had taken two more steps forward._

"_But I'm not…" she stopped and clamped her mouth shut, fearing she'd just put another nail into her coffin._

"_Not what?" Two more steps._

"_Nothing, nothing," Beth whispered, looking down at her tennis shoes._

"_No, c'mon, you were going to say something – what was it?" Andy insisted, quietly taking two more steps forward._

_She shook her head quickly and closed her eyes tight, holding her books ever closer to her chest, her knuckles turning white._

_He frowned. Why was this girl afraid of him? Or was it him she was afraid of? "Please, I really don't want to hurt you…" he paused, "I don't even know your name." He took one more baby step forward, keeping his hands up peacefully._

_Beth opened her eyes slowly, swallowing when she saw how close he had gotten. "I, I can't," she whispered uneasily._

"_You can't tell me your name?" Andy asked skeptically, his face still so open and honest you would never think he'd be able to tell a lie. "C'mon, throw me a bone, please? I just want to know your name."_

"_He'll be mad," she murmured while looking down, but there was the tiniest spark of rebellion and yearning in her expression now. It would be so nice to just have one friend in this miserable place – but it could mean so much trouble! Still…_

"_I won't tell anyone," he answered softly. "And I'll never hurt you – I don't hurt people."_

_Beth looked up and locked her sapphire eyes with Andy's bright green ones. The fear was gone from her expression, replaced with a sincere desire that he could name as one for friendship, and the flash of satisfying rebellion against an unnamed foe. "Beth. My name is Beth."_


	3. Chapter 3

**Remembering the Years**

**Chapter 3**

"BETH! Beth, come on, talk to me! Snap out of it, Squirt!" Frank called out kneeling over his sister's curled-up form. He was shaking her shoulder fiercely, urging her to wake up, but she remained unconscious on the floor.

"Should I call an ambulance?" Joe asked, voice tight with anxiety as he stood over Frank, shifting from foot to foot restlessly, needing to be doing something – anything – to be helpful. "Damn it! Damn it! _Damn it_!" Joe muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face hard. This was his entire fault, he knew it! He'd been the one to set her off into this coma-like state.

"Calm down, Joe! You aren't helping," Frank reprimanded sharply, not taking his eyes off the youngest Hardy for even a second. "I don't think we need an ambulance yet – maybe if we can just get her to come around on her own, she'll be okay." He frowned thoughtfully, with a momentary glance at the dark clouds forming in the sky overhead. "Let's try and get her into the house, I don't want to be out here when the storm hits."

Joe nodded, taking deep breaths to try and relax. "Okay, I can get her."

"You sure? It's going to be tricky with the ladder…" Frank trailed off uncertainly as Joe bent over and scooped Beth up as if she weighed nothing.

She sort of did, he realized. Joe had never really noticed before, but his sister was a freaking stick. He knew she wasn't anorexic – he'd watched her eat more than double her body weight at meals, more times than he could count. So she shouldn't logically be this lightweight, right? Maybe she had a high metabolism…

Joe mused over these things to keep himself occupied as he cradled Beth close with one arm, and climbed down the ladder with the other. Once at the bottom, he waited for Frank to descend before they walked into the house together.

Inside, Joe gently laid his still unconscious sister on the couch, covering her with a blanket.

Frank ran a wash cloth under the faucet of the downstairs bathroom, squeezing it out before coming into the living room. "How's she doing?"

"I still can't get her to respond. It's like she's locked inside her head or something! Are you sure about taking her to the hospital?" Joe asked again, taking his sister's limp hand into his own as Frank wiped her face down soothingly. "Or maybe we should at least call Mom?"

"Not yet, I want to see if we can pull her out of it first," Frank insisted. "Besides, _I'm_ not going to be the one to tell Mom that we couldn't keep our sister out of trouble for one afternoon, are _you_?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow.

Joe suddenly took an interest in his shoes.

"That's what I thought. Now, c'mon Beth…" Frank muttered worriedly as she continued to lay frighteningly still in front of him.

As if hearing him, Beth stirred restlessly in her sleep before her dark blue eyes fluttered open. She stared at the ceiling for a long time before focusing on Joe and Frank standing over her, her ears slowly losing the buzzing noise until she could finally hear them speaking to her.

"Beth, kiddo, are you all right? I'm so sorry – I didn't mean to set you off like that!" Joe apologized profusely.

At the same time, Frank said, "Squirt how are you feeling? What was that? Please tell me that doesn't happen a lot to you."

"Whoa, one at a time boys," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing her head to soothe the headache forming right behind her eyes. Happily, her brothers stopped their questions for the moment.

"Sorry," they chorused.

Beth cracked open an eye and gave them a weary smile. "It's okay. How long was I out?" she asked, frowning as she noticed they were no longer in the tree house.

"Only about five minutes, but they were the scariest five minutes of my life!" Joe told her emphatically, though he kept his voice lowered slightly, remembering her evident headache.

She nodded absently. "Sorry." She sat up, despite her brothers' protest, and took a deep breath. "So, who wants to chew me out first? Sherlock or Watson?" she asked, semi-sarcastically.

Joe frowned, "I forget which one I am."

"Watson," his siblings answered at the same time.

"Aw, why do I have to be the stupid doctor?" Joe whined, pouting.

Frank rolled his eyes, while Beth merely smirked in amusement. Come rain or shine, Joe would always be Joe. The fact was so reliable that Beth bet someone could set time by it, but she kept that idea to herself.

"Beth, what happened out there?" Frank finally asked, shaking his head.

She stared at the threadwork of the blanket, "I passed out. I thought that was obvious."

"You know what I mean, don't try to change the subject," the eldest Hardy ordered sternly, earning a stubborn frown and narrow eyes from his sister.

"Don't talk to me like that," Beth growled. Despite knowing that it made her look like a kid throwing a tantrum, she crossed her arms over her stomach and scowled defiantly.

She would not be ordered around like a dog again, she just wouldn't. She'd put up with that crap her whole life with someone who wasn't even related to her – she sure as hell wasn't going to take it from someone who was.

"Easy guys, there's no need to get upset," Joe said, holding up his hands soothingly. "Frank, she's not a criminal and this isn't an interrogation," he reprimanded gently.

Frank nodded his regret and quietly apologized.

"And Beth, we're just trying to understand what's going on. We only want to help – it's kind of what we do. At this point, it's a habit for both of us and we can't break it easily, sister or not," Joe added.

Beth sighed. "Yeah, I know that. Sorry." She smirked suddenly. "Who knew you could play responsible, adult peacemaker?" she teased.

Joe buffed his fingernails on his puffed chest smugly. "I have my moments," he boasted with an infectious grin.

Frank smiled tolerantly at his brother. "Yes you do. They're few and far between, but hey you've got them, right?" He laughed at the sour look Joe sent him.

"You guys are so mean to me! You're not supposed to gang up on me together. Beth and I are supposed to do that to you, or me and you against Beth – not the other way around," Joe griped, his chest deflating as he crossed his arms.

Beth's smirk widened. "I may have grown up an only child, but I doubt needling can only go two ways if there are three kids," she pointed out perceptively.

Frank frowned, sobering at a sudden thought. "I never really considered it, but I guess you did grow up as an only child. That just seems like such a foreign concept to me – I can't even remember a time before Joe was around. How peaceful it must've been…" he reflected, mostly serious.

Joe decided to ignore that comment – for now at least. "Were you bored a lot growing up? We always had each other to play with, and when we got older we hung out with our friends, but at home there was always at least one person around," he asked, honestly interested in her reply.

Beth thought about it for a long moment. "Not bored necessarily. I learned to entertain myself when I was really little, and it made me love things like music and books. But I didn't grow up with much – we lived in the slums and ghettos, and never had extra cash to spare, so no cool, flashy toys or electronic games. My favorite toy – other than Nibbles of course – was an old, beat up toy muscle car that Tim found at a garage sale; I never liked dolls. I learned to find joy in things that most kids turned their noses up at; trips to the library or the park, stuff like that were real treats."

She shrugged, "I guess in a way it made me appreciate life more. Charli and Mitch were the greatest and first friends I ever made; they always felt more like siblings. We shared things like toys and secrets, and we got along really well. Of course, when I got to high school they weren't around as much, but that was okay because then I met –" she stopped, and pressed her lips into a thin line like their father sometimes did. She'd said far more than she meant to, and she couldn't take it back.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid! _Beth thought vehemently, pinching the bridge of her nose. _I am such a babbling idiot! They'll never let this go until I tell them now, ugh!_

Frank and Joe traded looks. This had turned into an interesting development.

"When you met… who?" Joe asked tentatively.

Beth sent a hard glare at the ceiling, mentally cursing whatever force in the universe was screwing with her life and turning her into a brainless nitwit. "Nobody," she muttered.

"Do we have to go through this again?" Frank said, completely exasperated. "Honestly, every time we start to have a conversation, you clam up in mid-sentence! It's really annoying."

Beth rolled her eyes and pulled her knees up, crossing her arms on them and putting her chin there. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't like talking about my past. I made a lot of mistakes, and dealt with nasty consequences because of them. Call me egotistical, but I don't enjoy discussing my scores of failings over the course of my relatively short life."

"You're not the only one who's flawed, you know." Frank frowned, "I've done stupid things too; so has Joe. Yeah, we're not proud of our mistakes, but at least we can own up to them."

Beth looked Frank right in the eyes, the depressed shadow behind the sapphire color showing through clearly for the first time. "Have your mistakes killed people? Because mine have," she murmured.


	4. Chapter 4

**Remembering the Years**

**Chapter Four**

There was a long, stunned and painful silence among the siblings. Joe and Frank stared at their sister, but Beth trained her gaze solely on her misshapen wrist.

Joe seemed to find his voice first, but it came out hoarse and raw. "What did you say?" he asked softly.

Tears welled up in Beth's eyes, but she lacked the motivation to wipe them away. "You heard me. I'm responsible for my best friend's death." She swallowed painfully at the lump in her throat.

Frank seemed to be in shock, only able to look between his siblings incredulously. Was it possible for both his sister and his brother to have lost someone close to them? His brain took a few extra seconds just to compute that he needed more details. "When did this happen? Who are you talking about? I thought Mitch and Charli…" his voice trailed off.

Beth took a deep breath, "it happened two years ago. Mitch and Charli have always been my first and closest friends, but they weren't my best friends. Andrew Greene – Andy – holds that title. He was more than my best friend though, Andy was my first boyfriend. My first love…" she murmured softly.

"What happened to him?" Joe touched Beth's shoulder, and she flinched uncomfortably, not used to being comforted.

"Be tough, suck it up and never show weakness" – that had always been Tim's twisted philosophy. Somehow, it had rubbed off on her like a permanent marker; she just couldn't shake it.

"It's complicated," she murmured vaguely, unwilling to go into details. "The point isn't how he died – it's the fact that I got him killed. I did something stupid, and the end result was death, _his death_." She nearly choked on the last word, putting her hand over her mouth as the tears flowed down her cheeks freely now, her shoulders shuddering.

Joe sat down next to Beth gently while sliding his arm around her shoulders to hold her close, and she didn't pull away this time. He knew what she was going through, more than anyone in the world. His heart ached as he remembered the night he lost Iola, his own first love.

"It's okay, everything is okay," Joe whispered into her ear soothingly.

"Is that what you've been thinking about all day?" Frank asked kindly, putting his hand on her knee.

Beth swallowed back the lump in her throat, shaking her head as she answered, "I hadn't even begun to think of him until you guys came to the tree house."

"Then why…?" Frank began, looking more confused than ever.

Beth stopped him with a cold look, but gradually, the iciness faded and was replaced with a sadness that clouded the sparkle that usually filled her eyes. "I suppose I should've known I couldn't do this without you guys finding out, but I guess I was, I don't know, embarrassed. No one knows about this…"

"Knows about what, Kiddo?" Joe said delicately.

Beth looked down uncomfortably, rubbing her wrist like it was throbbing painfully all over again. "I have a tradition," she began faintly, "every year, one day a year I spend remembering my whole life. See, normally, I lock everything away in the back of my head. I focus solely on today, and forget about yesterday. It helps me to, to not be a miserable wreck, to be able to function like a normal human. For the rest of the year, I can be just a little happy, but that one day is spent in absolute misery."

Beth paused to gather her thoughts. "I do this to myself, so that I never forget the mistakes I've made. You can learn from mistakes, but I have so many – and it seems like my whole childhood was nothing but a blur of suffering – it overwhelms me to think about them every day. So I came up with a solution: Forget for three-hundred-sixty-four days a year, remember for one. If I forget forever, I'll never learn. I owe myself the chance to make a better future for myself, even if it means I'm in a depressed funk all day. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to Andy."

There was a long silence in the Hardys' living room. Beth looked up from fiddling with her misshapen wrist to assess her brothers' dispositions.

Joe seemed like he was trying to understand, attempting to figure out whether he would have done something like that, had the thought occurred to him. It was hard to imagine though – when he was getting over Iola's death, he'd sunk to an ultimate low, constantly depressed and throwing himself into one reckless situation after another, flirting shamelessly with anything in a skirt. Only the combined efforts of Frank, Vanessa, his parents and friends had kept him sane and gotten him back on track.

_Beth didn't have any of that, _Joe realized with a terrible sinking feeling. _She didn't have Mom and Dad, or me and Frank – she had Mitch and Charli, but otherwise, she was completely on her own. She was dealing with her boyfriend's death the best way she knew how, swimming in an endless sea with hardly a life preserver to keep her head above water, and she was only thirteen! _He tightened his grip around her, trying to assure her that he was there for her now.

Frank, meanwhile, looked as if he was trying not to get mad. He thought Beth's whole idea was absolutely preposterous! Why on earth was she still trying to deal with these old feelings? Why didn't she just forget about it, or see a therapist or something? There was no possible way she could have had anything to do with her friend's death. Beth wasn't the type to kill – really, if there was anyone she could have logically killed, it would've been Tim and unless she was really, really good at hiding a body, the police would've found him by now.

_No_, Frank decided, _she's just being an idiot. She was brainwashed by Tim, and that's why she's still feeling guilty. She needs to see reason. She can't keep up this ridiculous "tradition" as she called it. It's tearing her apart – I mean, good God, she passed out just because she remembered something about her friend. That's not normal, or healthy. Someone's got to say something. And why did she say her whole childhood was miserable? Surely, she must have some good memories!_

The last thought, he decided to put forward. "Seriously, you don't have _one_ good memory from your childhood?" Frank asked skeptically.

Beth thought it over for a moment, "The day I met Mitch and Charli was, I suppose, an okay memory; other than beating the crap out of those bullies of course. Um, there was that summer camp for gymnastics I went to when I was six, and a horse camp when I was seven... but then, when I got back both times, and practically every time I came back from a camp, Tim made up for the three months I was away." Her voice trailed off as she considered the question further.

Beth's forehead wrinkled in perplexity. "I guess the best memory I have, is from just a few weeks before Andy… erm, well anyway it was my thirteenth birthday and I was in a bad mood like I usually am on that date. Andy wanted to cheer me up, so he took me out, at least as well as two poor kids from the slums can go out. We went to the arcade and took turns playing Pac-Man and Frogger – you know, the classic video games." She smiled faintly, recalling Andy's unrestrained laughter as she furiously cursed Blinky the red ghost.

Her smile faded after a moment. "We grabbed a pizza from the best local parlor in our borough of the city, and we drove in his truck to park beneath the bridge near our neighborhood. He'd put blankets and old pillows down in the bed of the truck and we sat back there, eating cold pizza and warm soda, trying to pick out the constellations we knew – which is quite a challenge when you live in New York."

Beth rubbed at her eyes distractedly, clearing her throat. "Anyway, that was the last chance we really got to talk to each other one-on-one without somebody around to interrupt. It was a great night… the best birthday I ever had," she smiled faintly, even as her eyes darkened with sadness.

Frank frowned as he realized that maybe his sister's problems were more complex than he'd first assumed.

She was sad yes, and maybe she was being a little irrational by making herself suffer this way every year, but talking about just that one memory seemed to have made her a little happier. She wasn't doing this because she enjoyed suffering; she was doing it because she didn't want to forget these important moments in her life. She wanted to remember them, because she knew it could benefit her in the long run.

_She just needs to focus more on the good points, and less on the bad… and I think talking it out helps her more than doing it alone, _Frank thought, coming to a quick resolution.

"Beth? Tell us about Andy, please," he began hesitantly, unsure of her reaction. "What was he like? What did he like to do? Did you have a lot in common?"

Beth gave him a cautious look, but at Joe's encouraging nod, she twisted her mouth to the side in thought pulling her legs up and resting her head on her knees again. "Well, he was…" she smiled. "Different."

"_Beth! Hurry up, slowpoke!" Andy called back to his girlfriend from several yards ahead, his mouth spread in a huge grin. The wind whipped through his short hair, ruffling the black curls into an even more unruly mess._

_Beth rolled her eyes as she jogged to catch up, dodging cars and pedestrians in the crowded parking lot. "Honestly, Andy. It's not going anywhere!" she retorted, finally coming alongside him so they could walk together to the ticket booth._

_He slid his arm around her small shoulders and gave her an excited side squeeze. "Haven't you ever heard the saying: 'Getting there is half the fun'?" he asked teasingly._

_She sighed but smirked. "You're incorrigible." She gave him a light, playful punch in the side and he laughed._

"_I don't even know what that means, but c'mon! I want to see you throw up after riding the tea cups!" Andy exclaimed after purchasing their tickets, his green eyes teasing. The couple had taken advantage of the holiday weekend and half day of school to drive down to Coney Island in Andy's truck._

_The park was already crowded with people, and Beth felt a strange sense of excited befuddlement at all the loud sounds, bright lights and potent smells. Andy had been there before, and led Beth through the maze of carneys and side attractions towards the rides with complete ease._

_They got in line for the tea cups, with Andy bouncing up and down like a toddler who really needed a potty break, making Beth giggle at his childish antics. She playfully slapped his arm and told him to wait patiently for his turn, but that only seemed to make him bounce faster._

_The couple finally boarded a blue cup and before the attendant could even start the ride, Andy was already madly spinning the wheel to get them whirling. Beth laughed and protested that she was getting dizzy and she would totally throw up on him if he kept it up, but the threat only made Andy grin wider._

_When the ride was over, Andy helped Beth stumble out, and while she did seem a tad green around the gills, she eventually shook herself of the feeling and they moved on to the other rides. Beth couldn't help feeling more excitement and joy with every ride that they went on, from the rollercoaster to the merry-go-round, and by the time they ran out of ride tickets she was grinning ear to ear._

"_What now?" she asked, as they shared a tub of cotton candy, having already devoured a corn dog apiece and a large soda._

_Andy glanced around and spotted a midway game where you shot a water gun at a target, racing against other players, until your balloon popped. He smiled and pointed, "There!"_

_Beth glanced over and lifted a dubious eyebrow. "Um, I've heard that those games are total scams. I don't think we should –"_

"_Oh come on," he implored, dragging her along. "Live a little, Beth!" He grinned and gave the attendant a dollar to play._

_Two other players, a boy with braces and frizzy red hair, and a small girl with dark hair accompanied by her exhausted father, who was already carrying a sizable amount of won plush toys, were waiting to play._

"_Andy, I really don't think…" Beth trailed off as her boyfriend sat down on the cracked vinyl seat and aimed his squirt gun. She sighed and threw away the empty container of cotton candy, folding her arms as she waited for what she deemed an inevitable defeat._

_The attendant – an older teen with several body piercings and a choppy purple haircut – looked twice as bored as she chewed a huge wad of gum. "On your mark… get set… yeah, whatever," she ended unenthusiastically, as she pressed a button on a grimy looking control panel to start the game._

_Beth looked on in amusement as Andy and the other players gave it their absolute all to win the game, but it was clear from the start that Andy had a good lead on the others. Soon enough, Andy's balloon could contain no more water and popped. He gave a war-whoop of excitement and pumped his fist in the air._

_The frizzy-haired kid slammed his hand on the counter, muttering that the game was totally rigged, and then ran off with several other geeky kids; no doubt to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons was a much better game, Beth thought with more than a bit of amusement. The little girl scowled, declared that she'd rather ride the carrousel again anyway, and stomped off with her father following behind wearily._

"_Congratulations, you beat a nerd and a spoiled brat, I'm so proud of you," Beth deadpanned with a smirk, watching Andy do a strange victory dance that reminded her strongly of a too-fat turkey trying to fly._

"_You bet I did!" Andy declared with a laugh, not even caring about his girlfriend's sarcasm._

"_Sir, do you want to pick a prize or what? I don't have all day," the bored attendant girl asked, looking annoyed._

"_Oh right," Andy said, having forgotten for a moment that he was playing the game to get a prize._

_He scanned the back wall of the booth in the section that the attendant indicated he could pick from. Eventually, he pointed to a prize and the girl willingly – though still without much enthusiasm – grabbed it and shoved it into his hands._

"_Have a nice day, please don't come again," were the Goth girl's final, apathetic words as she sat back on a creaky chair and flipped open a magazine she'd been reading before._

_Beth and Andy retreated from the booth and walked down the midway for a way. "So, what did you get? A rubber ducky? A blow up hammer?" Beth asked eventually._

_He grinned, "Actually, I got something for you." He held up his prize, a cheap, silver oval necklace on a medium chain, smooth on the back and with a raised daisy on the front. "Like it?"_

_She frowned, feeling uncomfortable. "You didn't have to get me anything…" she muttered, kicking a stray candy bar with the tip of her sneaker._

"_I know, I wanted to," Andy smiled. "Try it on, let's see how it fits." He found that the chain was long enough that he could slip it over his girlfriend's head with ease._

_Beth fingered the design for a moment. "Thanks, really. But, this is yours. I want you to have it." She slipped it off her head and onto his, smiling and holding up a hand when he protested. "Please? I'd like it better if you wore it… it would really make me happy," she persuaded gently._

_Andy was about to object further, but the sincerity in her face stopped him. He smiled softly. "Okay. C'mon, let's go check out the side shows." He kissed her cheek tenderly, and took her hand._

"Why did you give it back?" Joe asked curiously.

Beth gave an awkward shrug. "I don't know, I guess I just felt… weird. I've never accepted gifts very easily. It makes me feel guilty."

Frank lifted an eyebrow. "He paid a dollar for it at a carnival game. What's there to feel guilty for?"

She frowned in irritation. "If you grew up being one of those kids who eats at the shelter at Christmas, you'd have a problem accepting charity too," she snapped.

Joe and Frank winced as Beth got up and went into the kitchen, her feet treading heavily on the floor. The brothers exchanged looks.

"Well, that blew up in your face," Joe deadpanned.

Frank rolled his eyes. "Shut up. I'm trying my best to understand, but she's not making this easy!" He ran a hand through his hair and made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat.

Joe sighed, "Bro, you've got to lighten up a little. She's been through a lot. You know the saying, 'men are from Mars, and women are from Venus?' Honestly, it's like that, but worse. We're not even from the same galaxy!"

Frank looked up slowly. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"No, it's the truth, and you know it is," his brother retorted. He sighed, rubbing his neck, "Frank, think about me when I lost Iola. I was impossible to reason with too, and I was always depressed and moody. You have to cut her some slack…"

Frank threw his hands up. "This Andy guy died two years ago!"

Joe gave him an even look. "If I hadn't met Vanessa when I did, I would've been in the same state as Beth. If you'll recall, I would've killed myself in a case if you hadn't been there. Beth didn't have anyone to help her cope, and I don't know if she would've accepted help had it been offered. She's self-reliant and independent."

"More like self-destructive and isolated," Frank muttered.

"Ugh, you're impossible." Joe shook his head, stood up and followed Beth into the kitchen. He found her sitting on the counter, holding a half-full glass of cola.

"Are you finding the secret to life in there?" he cracked, seeing her attentive stare at the dark drink.

She looked up and gave a small smirk. "Nah, just a lot of bubbles," she retorted playfully, but her eyes were still brooding.

"Yeah, I've found coffee's more accurate than cola," Joe quipped, leaning on the counter beside her. Despite the stupidity of the joke, Beth started giggling and Joe smiled at the sound. Eventually she gasped out, "you're so ridiculous!"

He shrugged. "I try." He smiled and ruffled her hair and just for fun poked her in the ribs, making her squirm and laugh.

"Hey, quit!" she gasped, dropping her glass onto the counter and jumping to the floor.

An evil glint came into Joe's eyes. "Oh, ticklish are we?" He tackled her, pinning her to the floor and digging his hands into her sides.

Beth snorted and giggled helplessly. "Joe! …St-st-stop! …P-please!"

"Stop what? My, you are a wiggly girl!" Joe said innocently.

Beth snickered loudly. "If you don't… qu-quit, I'm going to k-k-k-kill you! …I mean it!" she threatened, but it was hard to take her seriously when her face kept breaking into a huge grin.

"I really don't think there's anything to shout about, Beth," Joe chided with a toothy smile. "You take everything so personally!"

Beth could only laugh in response.

Frank stood in the doorway and watched, thinking. He wanted to understand, he really did, but how could he? His sister was just so, well, weird. Her motives didn't make sense! She was like a jigsaw puzzle that was missing several key pieces, ones that would help make up the whole. Without them, Frank felt like he might as well have been asked to explain a Van Gogh painting in Latin.

He felt lost, and – as he watched his brother help his sister off the floor so they could catch their breaths – totally alone in a sea of questions that might never be answered.


	5. Chapter 5

**Remembering the Years**

**Chapter Five**

"What did you do with Andy? Where did you hang out?" Frank asked, having been mulling over that question and many others for a while now.

Beth and Joe looked up from their bowls of soup and sandwiches. The three had made lunch not long ago, and were in the dining room. Outside, the skies had grown darker and darker, and as Beth contemplated her response, the rain started to pour and lightning crackled, mixing with the thunder.

Beth shrugged. "We hung and out here and there. We'd go to the arcade after school; wherever we could find to skateboard; sometimes his house or the pizzeria… nowhere really specific though, or consistent." She stirred her soup around, staring at the table blankly.

Joe frowned, sharing a look with Frank over Beth's head. As much as he hated to admit it, he could tell she was lying and he couldn't help wondering why. What did she have to hide? Where could she have gone with Andy that would be so bad?

Frank decided to fish a little more. "Did you ever go somewhere outside of Queens?"

Beth glanced up, but then quickly looked down, shrugging. "Not much. Aside from many summers spent at camps, I didn't get out much. I did once go to a Mets versus Cubs baseball game with Mitch, Charli and their dad." She smiled softly. "That was great."

Frank was getting frustrated. The conversation hadn't gone in the direction he'd hoped it would, and he was about to try and redirect it when Joe beat him to the punch.

"Cool! Tell us about it? Who'd you root for?" he asked, grinning at the more cheerful topic.

Beth smirked. "You'll hate me, but I love the Cubs."

Joe gave an appropriate exclamation of horror. "How could you!" he cried in mock disgust, but ruined it by laughing.

Beth echoed the laugh. "I've always loved the Cubs. I don't know why – I guess because Tim is for any and all New York teams, so…" She gave a mischievous grin.

"_This is awesome!" eleven year-old Beth Taylor exclaimed as she pushed through the crowded hallways of Shea Stadium alongside her best friends._

_Mitch, catching her lip movement, smiled and nodded. He signed to her quickly, "I know, right?" He tugged at his Cubs' baseball cap as it was nearly knocked off his sandy colored hair._

_Charli giggled and hugged her plush Cubby Bear, then grinned, showing off her gleaming new braces, "I'm so excited! Do you think we might catch a foul ball?" she asked, glancing up at her tall father._

_Mr. Sanders smiled. "Maybe," he answered. He was a handsome man, sandy haired like his children, with warm brown eyes and a kind heart. He had taken care of his children unaided since his wife had left him nine years ago, but he still found a lot of joy in life on occasions such as these._

"_That would be so cool," Beth sighed and pouted privately. She had terrible luck, it would simply be asking too much of the universe to think she could possibly catch a foul. Still, despite her doubt, she had brought her worn in glove that she'd gotten from a garage sale._

_The foursome found their seats in the stands and waited for the game to begin eagerly. After the opening ceremonies, they settled in to watch an exciting game._

_A couple of hours later, after a grueling game that had remained neck and neck almost constantly, they had finally reached the ninth inning. There had been a handful of foul balls the whole game, but most had gone to the other side of the stadium from where the Sanders family and Beth sat. Needless to say, the kids were a little glum, but Beth wasn't too surprised._

_The Cubs were batting now, and the Mets' pitcher was winding up._

_Beth looked down at the Cubs player, watching as he got into his stance, taking experimental swings to test the weight of the bat in his hands. She observed that he was aiming towards their section of the stands, and she wondered – with a small shiver of excitement – if maybe this would be the hit that won the game. The score was in favor of the Mets, but there was still a chance that the Cubs could pull through._

_She watched the player step up to the plate, and it seemed as if time slowed down while the pitcher wound up and threw the ball._

_The batter hit it, but it glanced off the bat wrong and flew through the air – right toward their seats!_

_Beth stood up, along with most of the other fans, and without even thinking about it, scrambled to climb on top of her seat and lifted her glove up. Her eyes followed the ball as it soared straight toward her like she was a magnet._

_At the last second, Beth knew she wouldn't be tall enough to reach the ball, but before she could give up in despair, Mr. Sanders, who must've seen it too, grabbed her about the waist and lifted her up. The ball slammed into her glove fiercely, and she clutched it tightly._

_Mr. Sanders lowered Beth back to her feet. A buzzing noise seemed to dominate her hearing as she tentatively peeked into her glove to see the coveted foul ball nestled there. She didn't register the cheers of the crowd or the excited chatter of her friends as she stared at the round ball that shouldn't be there._

_She did it – she didn't know how it happened, or why, but somehow she'd caught a foul ball. Beth had never experienced the feeling of triumph and happiness that surged through her, bubbling up like a newly dug well. She laughed and felt a few tears prick her eyes. She looked up and caught Mr. Sanders' eyes, smiling gratefully at him for his assistance._

_Mr. Sanders smiled, in that gentle, fatherly way he always did when he saw that he'd helped someone. He was a nurse by profession and had to help people every day, but there was something different and somehow better about helping a girl like Beth; someone who'd been dealt a rotten hand, but who still plodded along in life the best she could._

_Beth sat down again, hardly watching the baseball game now, which made her miss the last hit that won the Cubs the game, ending 8-7. She'd also missed that the big, flat-screen TVs had flashed up with the image of the foursome as Mitch and Charli had crowded around her excitedly._

_Beth didn't care though. All she cared about was her newfound treasure and the liberating feeling of finally winning at something, even if it was trivial._

_After the game, the group had filed out of the stands like the rest of the fans, but on the way out of the stadium, there was an inexplicable holdup in the lines to leave._

_Mr. Sanders frowned, glancing at his watch. He had to get Beth home before he could get his own kids in bed. He looked around and saw an empty, alternative hallway that he figured could probably get him back to the parking lot faster than waiting here. Mr. Sanders urged the preteens into the other hallway and they made swifter progress._

_Beth was still in a bit of a daze from her earlier, monumental catch, so she didn't see the man that was suddenly in her path until she bumped into him, sending her to the concrete floor. "Ouch," she muttered as she looked up. And then she froze._

_Standing over her were the two best baseball players in the whole, wide world!_

"_Whoa, you okay kid?" The man who she bumped into, Michael Barrett asked. He smiled kindly at her bewildered look, scratching his brown hair._

"_Um…I, I guess so?" Beth murmured uncertainly._

_Jacque Jones, the other man standing next to Barrett, grinned. "Hey, you're the girl who caught the foul in the last inning! Man, that was some catch kid," he complimented._

_Beth swallowed and stood up. "Yeah, um, thanks."_

"_You ever caught a foul before that?" Barrett asked._

_Beth shook her head. "Uh-uh. It's my first time at a baseball game too," she admitted sheepishly._

"_No kidding?" Jones said, adjusting his cap. He glanced at Barrett, and they shared a wink._

"_Um, excuse me!" Charli piped up, raising her hand. Cubby the Bear was hanging from her other one by the foot, but he still looked happy enough._

"_Sorry, didn't mean to be rude," Jones said, sticking out his hand for Mr. Sanders to shake. "Jacque Jones, at your service. This here is Michael Barrett."_

_Barrett also stuck out his hand for a handshake. Mr. Sanders took it then introduced them all to the ball players._

_Mitch tugged urgently on Charli's sleeve and signed in rapid-fire fashion. Charli grinned as she translated, "Mitch says it's great to meet you. He's a big fan, and it was a great game you guys played."_

"_Well thank you, little man, we appreciate that," Jones smiled and gave Mitch a fist bump._

"_Um, Mr. Jones? Mr. Barrett?" Beth started tentatively, "do you think, maybe, we could have your autograph? Please?" She bit her lip, unsure if she was crossing a line. She never was good at asking for things – it made her feel terribly guilty._

"_Well now, what do you think Jacque?" Barrett asked, winking secretly._

"_I think," Jones pretended to give it some consideration before he grinned, "That we can most definitely do that, Michael."_

_Charli and Beth swapped high fives and Mitch punched the air excitedly. The adults chuckled as Barrett and Jacque both signed Mitch's hat, Charli's bear, and Beth's ball._

"_Thank you so much," Beth told the players sincerely, "I've never had anything like this ever happen to me before. It means an awful lot." She blushed and looked down shyly at her ball._

_Barrett and Jones glanced at each other again, nodding. "Since you guys are here for the first time, and you worked hard to catch that ball, we've got something extra special for you," Barrett said as Jones ducked into a doorway for a moment, before reappearing with a Cubs metal bat._

_The athletes signed the bat with a flourish, adding an extra bit of text under their loopy, cursive names. Jones gave the bat to Beth, who swallowed and looked at it in awe, reverently stroking the cool metal._

_Beth quickly read over the message Jones and Barrett had written. 'Life is a lot like baseball – you win some, you lose some. But no matter what happens, or what curve balls are thrown at you, never give up. Don't let the scoreboard make you forget your love of the game. Eventually, you'll hit the ultimate homerun – Your friends, Jacque Jones and Michael Barrett'._

_Beth blinked rapidly, unsure if she was going to laugh or cry. Finally she settled for a weak laugh. "Thank you. So much…"_

_They smiled, and Barrett ruffled her short hair. "You're welcome, Beth."_

Joe leaned back and whistled. "Wow, that's incredible," he said softly.

Beth's smile was a little dreamy. "Yeah, it was… that was one of the best days of my life."

"What happened to the bat?" Frank asked, curious. Even though he'd wanted to coax more details about Andy out of Beth, he couldn't help getting caught up in her story.

Beth shrugged, "Mitch and Charli took it home, kept it in Mitch's room. We loved playing baseball, but never with that bat. It was way too special. When I left, Mitch gave it to me. I told him he should keep it, but he wanted me to have it, because he knew what Barrett and Jones wrote really meant something to me. I was taking a gamble running away from home – if it had turned out that I was wrong, I would've become a bum on the street before I came back to Tim. Mitch knew I needed a homerun, just one in my life, and that was my shot at it." She laughed softly, "He said if I was going up to bat, I should have the right equipment." She shook her head, eyes distant with memories.

Joe frowned, "Wait, I don't get it. You refuse to take Andy's gift, but you take Mitch's?"

"That's different," Beth said, looking away uncomfortably. "Besides, it's hard to argue with Mitch, especially when you can get hoarse and blue in the face doing it, while he can keep the argument up for a lot longer. The advantages of being deaf continue to amaze me." She rolled her eyes and smirked.

Outside, the sky shuddered with thunder and lightning crackled. The rain was falling even harder now at an angle, covering the windows so heavily that it was next to impossible to see outside.

"Nothing like a summer thunderstorm," Beth muttered, staring at the closed white French doors.

Frank nodded listlessly. "We haven't had one so bad in a while," he said, almost having given up trying to get anything pertinent out of his sister.

"I've never liked thunderstorms much," Beth mumbled as she put her head in her hand.

Joe folded his arms across his chest. "They're not so bad. As long as you're not in them, that is – that sucks." He threw Frank a pointed look.

Frank sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Are we really going to go over this again? I said we might get wet and that you needed a rain jacket. Did you listen? No, so don't blame me!" Clearly, the brothers had had this conversation before.

"What are you two talking about?" Beth demanded as she got up to get more water, coming back quickly to hear their explanation.

"Oh, nothing, just Joe griping yet again about an unintentional, uncalculated hiccup in an otherwise very good plan," Frank said.

Joe pouted. "It was not a good plan! That so called 'hiccup' got us captured by counterfeiters, and nearly killed. Hiccup my ass," he muttered.

Beth was trying desperately to hold in a laugh. "Okay, this I gotta hear!" She leaned forward in her seat in anticipation.

Frank shrugged. "There's not much to tell, really. We were fourteen and fifteen, investigating a gang of counterfeiters with Dad, when we found a great lead."

"The lead pointed to the possible location of the gang's hideout in the woods, out near the Mortons' farm," Joe picked up the story. "We decided to go for it, and it was clear skies when we went, thank you very much."

Frank merely rolled his eyes and shook his head. "If you'd paid attention to the weather forecast before we left, you would've known to bring a rain slicker," he said, sounding as if he had something similar many times before.

"Whatever. So, we go, and we were hiding in the woods, when the heavens opened up and soaked us to the bone. We couldn't leave our posts though, so we stuck around. Unfortunately, the rain masked any telling signs of someone approaching, so…" Joe trailed off.

"You got jumped?" Beth guessed.

"Precisely," Frank nodded. "Four guys converged on us –"

"Not the best of odds!" Joe interjected.

"And we fought them off the best we could, but Joe wasn't always the muscle head he is now." There was an affectionate tone in Frank's voice to go along with the teasing.

"And Frank had only been in karate lessons for a year or two, so he was still a young grasshopper." Joe's tone matched Frank's as he grinned.

"So, we lost the fight, obviously, and this gang wasn't very pleased with finding two kids snooping around their base of operations," Frank continued. "They were especially pissed when they figured out who we were, and they assumed that Dad must be close to busting them."

"Which wasn't the case because you didn't tell Dad where you were going before you left to check the lead," Beth said, second guessing the next logical step to the story. "So they decided to knock you off?"

"Mm-hmm," Joe confirmed with a snort. "They tied us up like a couple of Thanksgiving turkeys and tossed us into an unused small bedroom in the abandoned farm house they'd commandeered, telling us we'd better start praying 'cause it'd take a miracle for us to be rescued."

"Of course it didn't take a miracle," Frank commented dryly. "They didn't take away the cell phone Mom and Dad got me, so I sent a text to both of them, and on a hunch, one to Chet."

"You sent a text with your hands tied?" Beth raised a doubtful eyebrow.

"Not as hard as it sounds – although it's easier now than it was back then. I had a flip phone that you had to scroll through letters with, so it took some time. Fortunately they weren't too concerned about a couple of annoying kids, they didn't post a guard." Frank chuckled, "The look on their faces when the whole of the Bayport Police department, along with the FBI and Dad descended upon them was priceless."

Joe laughed. "I still remember Chet coming up the lane in his old clunker, Queen, backfiring away, and making them think they were being shot at!"

Beth smirked, and Frank snickered.

Beth looked back out the French doors at the rain, and sighed suddenly, her demeanor gloomy once more.

"What's wrong?" Joe asked.

Beth shook her head. "It's nothing; just that I wish I could've been there. The more I hear about the cool things you've done together, how you've saved the world and fought bad guys over the years, it makes me realize more and more how much I missed out on. I wish that I could go back and change what happened… but that's silly." She frowned, as if she didn't really think it was silly at all.

"We can't change the past, Squirt," Frank said gently.

"I know that," Beth said with a heavy sigh. "But you can't blame me for wanting to."

"No, we can't. But I think in the end, things worked out the way they were supposed to." Joe laid a gentle hand on Beth's back. He frowned suddenly, and moved his hand back and forth, tracing a pattern through Beth's shirt. "Beth, what's –?"

Beth jumped up and away from Joe's touch quickly, and walked over to stand next to the window. She crossed her arms over her chest, and bit her tongue to hold back the bile that was rising in her throat. "When do you think the storm will pass?" she asked, rubbing her arms like she was cold.

Frank wrinkled his forehead at his siblings. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Beth said quickly, her tone hard.

"She has scars on her back!" Joe blurted out.

"No, I do not! You probably just felt my bra or something," Beth explained impatiently.

"Last time I checked, bras weren't crescent shaped and they're not generally found on your shoulder blade. Neither are they long and go slantwise down someone's back," Joe retorted.

"Shut up, Joe, you don't know what you're talking about!" Beth yelled, tears stinging her eyes.

"Beth, why don't you just admit it? You've got scars on your back, and they're probably from that jackass Tim! Why is it so hard to admit that?" Joe demanded as he too got up from the table.

Beth turned around and opened her mouth to argue, but only shut it again as tears rolled down her cheeks. She stared at Joe for a moment longer, then ran upstairs, her whole form quivering with her sobs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you to everyone who has read this fic so far and put me on your assorted lists :) I've been going through a hard time recently, as my grandfather is in the hospital, so if you find this chapter particularly disturbing/angsty blame it on that. I'm a little disappointed I haven't gotten any reviews for this thus far, but I'm used to that so no worries – still, it would make me happy to receive one, even an anonymous one :) Was that enough of a hint? :D Anyway, I've decided that this story will only be eight chapters long, including an epilogue. Now, all that said, on with the chapter…**

**Chapter Six**

"Well, that was brilliant," Frank commented dryly, practically echoing Joe's words from earlier in the day.

Joe shot him a glare. "Not funny."

Frank raised his hands in defense. "Hey, I'm behind you all the way. She's still hiding something from us; that at least I believe we can agree on. The question still remains: why?"

Joe made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat and started to pace. "I don't know, but she's starting to piss me off. Why can't she admit it?"

"I think it's hard for her," Frank said slowly. He elaborated at Joe's questioning look, "I've been thinking about this… she's had to be perfect and self-reliant for so long, that it may be hard to admit that she's still human. She seems to have a strong problem with appearing weak – not that I blame her. Growing up in a house like that, it could have fostered a desire in her for unattainable perfection."

"Care to put that in English?" Joe asked, sitting down at the table while he rubbed his neck.

Frank leaned forward and gestured with his hands to get the point across. "Beth was raised in an environment where Tim probably expected her to accomplish out of reach aspirations at an early age. Hence, she was forced to grow up too fast. Because she was constantly told that she was a failure by Tim, over time she began to set unrealistic goals herself."

"And now when she can't meet those goals, she lashes out and becomes reclusive," Joe continued the thought, beginning to understand what Frank was getting at.

"Right," Frank agreed. "She's never been offered help to overcome obstacles, so she can't accept help because it would mean that she failed. In her world, failure wasn't an option. Therefore, admitting that she'd been abused to the point of serious scarring means failure to Beth, so she won't talk about it."

"She's afraid there will be painful consequences to that supposed failure, just like there have been in the past." Joe sat back, staring into the distance as if he could physically see another piece of the puzzle that was his sister falling into place. The only problem was his sister was a mystery wrapped in a riddle and placed in an enigma. It felt like every time he and Frank got close to figuring her out, she threw another obstacle at them.

Joe sighed and focused back on his brother. "So? What do we do?"

Frank frowned pensively and ran his hand through his hair. That was a good question. What _were_ they going to do?

Beth sat on the dusty window seat, holding her legs close while trying to stop her tears. She wiped her eyes then tentatively reached behind her to lightly trace her moon shaped scar, her stomach rebelling dangerously at the sensation.

Out of all her scars, this would be the one that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Even as she sat up here in her parents' attic, miles away from Queens and that damned apartment, she could still see that day clearly.

_Beth carefully lifted the old window up, sliding through into the pitch dark room from the fire escape. Once her feet were on the floor, she pressed the window down again, wincing at the seemingly loud creak it gave. She sighed once it was in a slightly cracked position, knowing that putting it down all the way would make it impossible to open again._

_She straightened and yawned, glancing at the red numbers of her alarm clock to see it was well past two a.m. She'd been out with Andy doing 'the job' as he called it. She'd never thought about or wanted to turn into a cliché, but somehow it had happened. She lived in a bad neighborhood, attended an underfunded high school, and now, well, she was in a gang._

_Now granted, it wasn't the type of gang where they went around killing people and shooting up store windows. No, they were a car gang: street racers. They boosted cars, overhauled cars, stole car parts – all of that so that they could compete in street races in the dead of night against rival gangs, with money and territory as the prize. The gang was called The Kings of Queens, and she was their newest, youngest and only female recruit._

_Beth hadn't meant to get involved in something so low, but Tim was often too hammered to go to work and they were falling behind on the rent. As much as she despised helping Tim, the thought of living on the streets was even more unpleasant, so she'd gone to Andy and asked him if he could hook her up with a job where he was working._

_Andy was extremely reluctant at first, warning her that it wasn't the right place for her, that people got hurt and sometimes killed doing the job. But Beth had seen the kind of cash his job generated, and she kept pressing him for weeks._

_When Andy couldn't take the pressure anymore, he unwillingly agreed to get her an interview, but he gave her one last warning: 'If you screw up here, you're dead; no questions asked, only where to put your body. You always have to be at the top of your game, there's no slacking off allowed. Fail once and it's over – forever'._

_Beth shook her head. She should've taken his warning seriously, she should have listened. But it was too late. She was in this now, and there was no turning back, not with the Kings._

_Her stomach growled at her, reminding her that the only thing she'd eaten all day was a crappy, half-eaten school lunch. She needed to eat something before she passed out for the night, or she'd never be able to move in the morning for school._

_She tiptoed to the door, opening it a crack and listening intently. There were muffled, static-filled voices coming from the living room, loud snoring, and a dull glow emanating from that room. She breathed a sigh of relief. Tim had conked out in front of the television again, which meant that he wouldn't know she was gone and she could get something to eat._

_Before she went downstairs, she quickly changed into sweatpants and a tank top. She had enough foresight to know that if Tim woke up and saw her in street clothes, it would be a painful disaster for her. Once finished, she crept downstairs as quietly as she could, glancing into the living room and confirming her suspicions._

_Tim had a bottle of whisky clutched in one hand, the TV remote dangling from the other. He was tilted back in his old, decaying recliner, snoring away. Perfect, Beth thought with the tiniest of smirks._

_She trod softly to the fridge, peeking inside for a moment. The sight wasn't heartening; there was half a loaf of bread, a jar of pickles, a gallon of milk that didn't look so good, a half empty six pack of beer, and four boxes of Chinese takeout. She checked the takeout boxes, but found three of them empty while the fourth held untouched white rice. She rolled her eyes privately and took the container of rice before closing the fridge._

_Beth set the rice on the table and glanced into the cabinets but found only a jar of peanut butter that was nearly empty. Resigned to reality, she sat down at the creaky table to devour the rice, promising herself that when she got paid on Friday she'd buy groceries._

_Just when she was nearly finished with the rice, she heard a dull thud from behind her. Turning around quickly, she saw that Tim had dropped the remote and either the noise of it hitting the cheap carpet or the feeling of it leaving his hand had awakened him._

_She swallowed hard as Tim cracked open bloodshot eyes and looked around him blearily. It was a long, painful moment as he sat up in his chair and rubbed his head, muttering curses under his breath. He stood up, but almost fell down again as his feet wobbled beneath him. Clearly the whiskey hadn't cleared his system yet, and he was still slightly drunk._

_Beth watched in trepidation as Tim got his balance and stood a little straighter. Their eyes locked, and she willed herself not to panic at the bitter hatred in his gaze._

"_What are you doing up?" He asked gruffly, or at least she assumed that was what he said. The words were slurred together from the alcohol and a bit difficult to understand._

"_I was hungry," she answered softly, dropping her gaze to the floor. Maybe if she acted submissive enough, he'd leave her alone._

_Tim growled, "What did I tell you about eating without asking?"_

_Beth swallowed. "I'm sorry. I just, I mean, I didn't think that you would mind…"_

_Moving faster than she thought possible in his drunken state, Tim was suddenly in front of her. He grabbed her forearm roughly and yanked her from her seat. "Don't you _ever_ presume that you know what I think, little girl," he snarled in her ear, making her wince. "When I tell you not to do something, I mean it! Obviously, words don't work on you anymore, so I'll have to try something else to get it through your thick skull."_

_He dragged her to the stove, turning on the front burner to high. Beth's eyes widened in fear and she shook her head. "No, please Uncle Tim, I'm sorry. I'll never do it again, I swear! Please!" she pleaded, but he ignored her._

_Beth struggled to release his death grip on her, but nothing was working. Desperately, she kicked his shin and punched his arm, making his grip go slack long enough for her to scramble towards the stairs._

_She'd only put her foot on the bottom stair when Tim grabbed her from behind, gripping her arms tightly as he pulled her backwards. She dug her heels into the linoleum frantically but it didn't seem to slow them down at all._

"_No! Let me go, Tim! Let me go!" She screamed, hoping someone would hear her, that they would call the police or do something, anything, to help her._

"_Shut up," he snapped, shaking her roughly. He glanced at the stove top, and smiled sickly at the red hot coils. "I hope you remember this day for a long time to come, little girl. Whenever you think of disobeying me – the next time it so much as crosses your mind – I want you to remember this and think better of it." He grasped her two wrists tightly, using his other hand to pull the back of her shirt down slightly, exposing a rare, untouched piece of skin on her lower left shoulder blade._

_Without remorse, he pushed her against the stovetop, pressing her shoulder blade against the hot coils. Beth screamed, tears stinging her eyes at the searing, white hot pain shooting through her. Tim covered her mouth roughly, and held her in place for several more seconds before he released her._

_Beth fell to the floor, crying brokenly. The pain was still there, making it difficult to stay conscious. It was more pain than she'd ever dealt with in one night, dominating her thought processes and pushing everything else into a cloudy blur. She barely registered Tim turning off the stove and stalking out, she couldn't even comprehend the last scathing remark he threw over his shoulder at her before he disappeared upstairs._

_Probably something about cleaning up the mess she'd made with her blood._

_She laid there for a long time before she felt strong enough to get to hands and knees and from there struggle to a standing position. She glanced behind her and shuddered at the blood now coating the stove and floor. She leaned heavily against the table, breathing deeply to keep the bile down._

_Gingerly Beth sat down, and winced when she tried to move her shoulder. She couldn't clean up the kitchen – or herself – in this state, and she knew that there would be hell to pay if everything wasn't spotless in the morning. She looked at the stairs and then at the portable phone on the counter, just within her grasp. She hated to call him at this hour but what choice did she have?_

_A little later, she was still sitting at the table, wrestling to open the first aid kit when she could hardly use her left arm. Not good considering she was left handed. Suddenly there was a very soft knock on the front door, just barely distinguishable over the sounds of the city outside and Tim snoring upstairs._

_Beth gently eased herself up and cracked the door open, breathing a sigh of relief at the face on the other side of the door. She undid the chain lock and let Andy inside. "Hi, thanks for coming. I'm sorry for bugging you," she murmured._

"_Hey it's no… shit, Beth you're bleeding!" Andy exclaimed, a bit louder than necessary, causing her to urgently motion for him to shut up. Taking the hint, Andy said nothing else as he led her to a chair and made her sit down._

_His green eyes roved over the scene, his jaw clenching angrily at the sight of burned flesh and blood. "I swear to God, I'm going to call the cops this time, or kill him myself," he muttered darkly._

"_Don't bother; he's got most of the department in this area of the city on his side. They'd sooner arrest you for harassing them, and pretend that this didn't happen. Cooking accident – I tripped on something – that would be the story." Beth snorted and rubbed her eyes distractedly. She tried to project a calm facade so her boyfriend would worry less, but she could tell that he wasn't buying the act._

_Andy took her face in his hands and frowned. "I don't like you being here. Why don't you come with me? My parents won't mind, I'm sure of it!"_

"_Andy, your parents both work two to three shifts a day just to make ends meet, not to mention they have to take your brother to the hospital regularly. They don't need me added to their burdens as well," Beth refuted quietly, her tone resigned._

"_Couldn't you move in with the Sanderses?" he argued, pushing back a piece of her brown hair to better see her sad blue eyes._

"_I couldn't do that to them. Anyway, they live two blocks away from here. Even if Tim is a jackass, he's not dense. Wouldn't take a rocket scientist to think of looking for me there… look," she held up her right hand, as her left still hurt too much to move. "It sucks, okay? I get that, believe me. But I can't do anything about it. Social Services won't believe me – even if they did, they'd just stick me in an even crappier situation. I'd rather stay here than deal with being bounced from foster family to foster family until I'm eighteen. So, can we drop it?" she pleaded tiredly._

_Andy blew out a sharp breath and shook his head. "Yeah, okay… for now," he replied in a tone that indicated the matter wasn't closed – not by a long shot._

"_Thanks," she smiled weakly, and shifted in her seat a little. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth when the movement accidentlly jarred her shoulder. "Damn it," she muttered._

"_Try not to move, okay? Here, let me take a look at that," Andy moved behind her and pulled her shirt down to get a better look at the wound. He winced but then kept his face neutral as he cleaned his girlfriend up using the first aid kit. It was going to be a long night._

Beth rubbed her eyes hard as fresh, unwanted tears emerged. That was one of the few times she'd asked for help in her life, and it was only because she knew she couldn't do it on her own. She wasn't sure why she hated asking for assistance so much – maybe because Tim had viewed it as a weakness, maybe because she was used to taking care of herself without help, maybe it was some other reason. She'd probably never know for sure.

She took a deep, cleansing breath and sat back, looking out the window pensively. The rain had continued on at the same hard pace, but the thunder and lightning was further off now. Sick of watching the water stream down the window, she looked around the attic indifferently, until something suddenly caught her eye. She stood and walked over to a far corner, moving boxes out of the way.

Kneeling down, she pushed a rather large box across the floor until she uncovered the guitar case she'd seen poking out. Pulling the case in front of her, she ran her fingers along the cracked leather covering, tracing the outline of faded bumper stickers and old, illegible signatures written in permanent ink.

Clicking open the latches, Beth lifted the lid with a squeaky, old creak feeling her eyes widen. "Holy crap," she muttered in awe. Lying casually on the blue fabric interior, like it had been just waiting for her to find it, was a Gibson electric guitar.

The model name had been rubbed off from years of use, and the strings looked worn, but Beth couldn't help thinking that it was gorgeous, and looked to be perhaps a sixties or seventies edition. Hesitantly, she picked it up and laid the instrument in her lap, finding to her surprise that it was a left-handed model and it fit comfortably in her grasp. She wondered who it belonged to. Joe said he took guitar lessons before, but she knew that his guitar was sitting on a stand in his room. Frank didn't play, and as far as she knew neither did her mother.

Briefly, Beth considered the possibility that it belonged to her aunt, but then dismissed that thought with a shake of her head. Aunt G was a pretty cool old lady when you got past her sharp tongue and tactless way of speaking – something Beth found immensely amusing at times – but the teen couldn't imagine her aunt playing the guitar; it just wasn't the older woman's style.

As her eyes passed over the worn areas of the guitar where the player had obviously touched it routinely, her eyes caught something that had been lying beneath the instrument in the case. She picked up the faded instant photo, studying the young couple in the picture. They were both in their twenties, the woman slender and blonde, the man lean and dark haired, with their arms wrapped around each other. It clicked a moment later that she was looking at a picture of her parents, probably taken long before Frank was born or they were even married, judging by the clothes and hairstyles they wore.

She flipped the photo over, finding a note written in a messy but familiar scrawl: 'Me with Laura – 1982'. Beth's jaw dropped as she looked back down at the guitar. "Dad? This was yours?" she murmured to herself in disbelief. She had no idea her father even played, let alone owned a guitar like this.

Laying the picture back down, Beth tentatively placed her fingers over the strings, giving a few tentative strokes using the pick she'd found in the case. It was slightly out of tune from disuse, but with a few quick turns that was easily fixed. She did some scales first, giving her fingers a moment to readjust to the feel of the metal cords beneath them. It had been a long time since she'd played one of these. Even without an amplifier to plug into, the guitar still played pretty good, with the notes being just a little flat sounding.

Unconsciously, she began playing one of the few songs she'd learned, humming along to the tune. Before she knew it, she was into the chorus and was singing softly to herself.

"_I'm someone filled with self-belief –_

_And haunted by self-doubt –_

_I got all the answers –_

_I've got nothing figured out –_

_I like to be by myself –_

_I hate to be alone –_

_I'm up and I am down –_

_But that's part of the thrill –_

_Part of the plan –_

_Part of all of the things I am –_

_I am special –_

_I am beautiful –_

_I am wonderful and powerful –_

_Unstoppable –_

_Sometimes I'm miserable –_

_Sometimes I'm pitiful –_

_But that's so typical, of all the things –_

_I am." *_

_* "I Am", preformed and written by Hilary Duff, produced by John Shanks, © Hollywood Records, Inc_


	7. Chapter 7

**Remembering the Years**

**Chapter Seven**

Beth paused in mid guitar stroke, the hairs standing up on her neck with the feeling that someone was watching her. Slowly, she swiveled around, and caught a flash of blonde hair and one of brown ducking down quickly on the stairwell. She chuckled to herself and shook her head.

"I see you guys," she said, her tone amused. "Come on now! Show your faces; I know you're there." Frank and Joe popped up again from behind the stair's banister and accended into the attic fully, looking a little embarrassed.

"Uh… hey. We weren't spying," Joe said hastily, rubbing his neck while looking anywhere but Beth's face.

Frank rolled his eyes at that; however, he looked just as uncomfortable with being found out. He'd always prided himself on being able to sneak up on people without getting caught – it was an important aspect to being a detective – but now it seemed he had a spot on his record.

"It's okay, really." Beth gave a small, sweet smile. It was a very gentle expression for her usually cool and somber appearance, but not an unpleasant one. It made her look more innocent, something that her brothers had come to realize she hadn't been in quite awhile.

Frank cleared his throat awkwardly, "I, um, didn't know you played; or sang for that matter."

Beth blushed, another rare look for her. "Well, I took a few lessons in elementary and middle school, even went to a music camp one summer. I haven't played in years. I have to admit, I've missed it." She turned her attention back to the guitar in her lap, "To be honest, I'm surprised I found this up here."

Joe frowned and came closer, crouching next to Beth while he ran his fingers along the guitar. "I've never seen this either. Mine is downstairs, and it's nothing compared to this. I bought mine second- or third-hand at a pawn shop. This is much more valuable, even with the wear and tear."

"That's not even the interesting part," Beth said, flourishing the photo. "This was in the case."

Joe looked at the photo and frowned, "is that Mom and Dad?" At Frank's urging, he handed it to his brother.

Frank raised an eyebrow. "I think so."

"Check the inscription on the back," Beth suggested.

Frank complied, with Joe peering over his shoulder. "It is them; the nineteen-eighties them, but them nonetheless. Why was this in the guitar case though?"

Beth smiled in a way that reminded the boys of how their father looked after a case was solved. "I think this was Dad's guitar."

Joe shook his head. "Dad doesn't play. He's always said it was fine for a hobby but ultimately a waste of time."

"Well then how do explain that it's a left-handed guitar? Only Dad and I are left-handed in the family." Beth pointed out.

"I didn't know you were left-handed," Frank commented.

Beth shrugged and gave him a teasing smirk. "Perhaps you're not such brilliant detectives after all," she suggested, grinning at the peeved look that produced from both her brothers.

Joe maturely stuck out his tongue.

Frank sighed long-sufferingly and decided to change the subject. "Beth, we've been talking. We know that you're reluctant to talk to us about your past and… It's okay, we understand."

Beth looked down and swallowed. She stroked her misshapen wrist again out of nervous habit. Frank sat down on the floor on her left side, putting his hand on her shoulder. Joe sat on her opposite side, softly brushing a tear off her cheek that she was trying to hide.

"Beth… believe it or not, we're not trying to interrogate you. We just want to understand you better, to get to know you. We love you kiddo, you know?" Joe said his expression sincere.

"Yeah, I know," Beth said softly as she blinked back tears. "I love you guys too. That's why I don't like talking about it with you. I'm afraid it'll hurt you to hear about my past. It might make you feel guilty and act awkward around me, or that you'll pity me. I just want to be treated like a normal kid. I know I'll never be normal, but if I could at least be treated like I was, maybe I could pretend for awhile."

"Squirt, we'll never pity you, I can promise you that," Frank said, tilting Beth's face up to look into her eyes. "You are normal. No, really," he added when she gave him a skeptical look. "So you have extra baggage you don't like to talk about. So what? We all have that to some extent. Joe and I don't care that you made mistakes – nobody's perfect."

"It's hard to admit it when you were wrong, I know that myself," Joe admitted. "We love you anyway – flaws and all. No one's going to judge you, or look down on you here, no matter what. You're a part of our family. Personally, I couldn't ask for a cooler sister than you."

Beth smiled slightly but shook her head. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"No way! I mean it," Joe replied adamantly. "You're really cool. You play guitar; you sing; you love baseball; you're a great story teller and you're a good friend."

Beth blushed slightly, rubbing her neck.

Frank smiled a little at her embarrassment. It was nice to know that there was a way to get a genuine reaction out of her without pissing her off. "You're also brave and strong, and know how to stand up for yourself. You're selfless to a fault, always putting everyone ahead of you. Okay, so you made mistakes, and you can be annoying. But you're really mature too, and you don't pretend to be something you're not. Everything about you says that you know who you are, and nobody will change that. I think that makes you a great person."

Beth's blush deepened. "Jeez, what is this? An intervention on Dr. Phil?" she muttered, causing the boys to laugh. She smiled wryly at them. "Since we're on the topic of attributes, I think I finally have you two figured out."

"Heaven forbid! I am an unsolvable puzzle! How could you ever decipher me?" Joe exclaimed, dramatically putting a hand over his heart.

"Should I go pick up your Oscar?" Frank asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, that would be very helpful, thank you. But please, no autographs." Joe replied, grinning inanely.

Beth smacked her forehead. "Could we focus? I'm trying to be serious here."

"You being serious? What a novel concept!" Joe quipped.

As one, Frank and Beth slapped Joe upside the head. The blonde boy frowned and rubbed his head. "Ow," he murmured.

"Back to what I was saying," Beth said, trying not to roll her eyes. "I finally figured you both out. Frank," she turned to her eldest brother, "you're all about logic and order. You take everything step-by-step, and plan ahead. You're really mature for your age and serious most of the time."

"I could've told you that," Joe muttered.

Beth ignored him. "But you've also got a good sense of humor. You love solving puzzles and you're really smart. But you're not a genius. Sometimes you have trouble reading people – you're better with books, and that's okay. You're also way overprotective of everyone, but it seems to be concentrated mostly on Joe and me. Sometimes… sometimes I think that maybe you're trying to take the weight of the world strictly on your shoulders. Not the healthiest of habits, but it just shows how much you care about the people you love. It's because of all those things that I think you make a great older brother."

Frank looked a tad embarrassed now himself, but he smiled, acknowledging silently that she was right on most of those counts. Although perhaps 'great older brother' and 'way overprotective' took things too far…

Beth turned to Joe now. "Joe, you're really funny. You always try to make people feel better with your jokes. Sometimes, you can act a little childish, but that's okay. You balance Frank out, since he sometimes acts too grown up. You're incredibly loyal, brave, and smart. You've got a heart of gold as big as the sky, and you love helping people."

"Careful Beth, you'll over-inflate his ego," Frank interjected teasingly.

Beth disregarded that comment and continued. "Most of the time, you act without thinking first, which sometimes gets you in trouble. Even though you're hyper, annoying and childish, you're also really unselfish and kind. You're a great brother too – maybe not exactly a typical older brother type – but still, a great brother."

Joe chuckled self-consciously. "That's quite a speech there, Beth."

"Yeah, well," Beth toyed with a piece of her hair, "I may not talk a lot, but when I've got something important to say, something that needs to be heard, I say it. I hate beating around the bush."

Frank and Joe both chose not to comment on that. It was silent for a long time in the attic, all three siblings lost in their thoughts. Joe looked up suddenly at the window, breaking the silence first. "Hey, it stopped raining."

They got up as one, Beth placing the guitar back in its case, and looked out the window. Sure enough, the rain had finally passed, leaving a very wet, fresh new world outside. The clouds were now mostly silver, with a small patch of blue sky pushing through. The sun burst through the break, causing a vivid rainbow to arc across the sky. Strangely enough, it almost seemed to be directly over the Hardys' house.

"Well, would you look at that," Beth murmured. "It did stop." She stood for a second longer, then suddenly turned and hurried down the stairs. Joe and Frank shared mystified looks before following.

Beth dashed down two flights of stairs, ran through the dining room and burst out of the French doors. She strode across the wet deck, relishing the cool water against her feet as she padded down the steps. She walked out to the center of the lawn, then turned back toward the house and looked up.

Joe and Frank caught up with her swiftly and stood next to her, following her gaze. A heartbeat passed before Joe, unable to stand the awkward silence, said, "Um, what are we looking at?"

"_Regenbogen,_" Beth whispered.

"Huh?"

"It means 'rainbow' in German – seeing one is often a good omen, a symbol of good luck in a lot of cultures." Beth explained.

Another long pause followed.

"You speak German?" Frank asked blankly.

"Would you prefer a different language? How about Russian? _Raduga._ Or maybe Japanese? _Niji_. Spanish? _Arco Iris._" Beth rattled off the words thoughtlessly, the different languages rolling from her tongue with ease.

Joe blinked and slapped his cheek, trying to jumpstart his brain again. "How do you know all these languages?"

Beth gave her signature smirk, but didn't turn away from the rainbow. She slung her arms around her brothers' waists. "That's my secret," she said cryptically. "There are two things you should both know by now – I'm full of surprises and you'll never fully figure me out."

Frank and Joe traded exasperated glances over their sister's head. Sharing the same idea, they bent down, scooped Beth off her feet and carried her to the above ground pool. Without remorse, they tossed her in, watching in amusement as she came sputtering to the surface. They were sure she'd be furious with them, but she simply laughed.

Beth treaded water easily as she grinned at them, pushing her brown hair out of her eyes. "Okay, I deserved that. Wanna join me? The water's nice."

Joe and Frank both grinned and jumped in. The three soon were in a splashing war, tossing bucketful amounts over the side of the pool, further saturating the all ready soaked ground. They weren't sure how much time passed – none of them really cared. They didn't even hear two cars pull into the driveway, nor their parents' calls as they searched the house vainly for their children.

Suddenly, though, Fenton and Laura appeared on the back porch, staring in shock at their three teenage children who were swimming in the pool fully dressed.

"What on earth is going on here?" Laura exclaimed.

Frank, Beth and Joe turned around, abandoning their attempts to drown each other for the moment.

"Hi Mom! Hey Dad!" Joe called cheerfully with a wave.

"What's up?" Beth asked.

"What are you three doing in the pool with your clothes on? Right after a thunderstorm too, I might add?" Fenton questioned incredulously.

Frank shrugged. "The water looked nice." He traded winks with his siblings, who sniggered.

"Well come out of there now, please. The storm hasn't moved far enough off yet – you could still get electrocuted," Laura told them, trying not to smile.

The siblings complied, shivering a little at the sudden chill from the dip and lack of sunshine. They walked side by side towards the porch. Beth smiled, taking one last glance at the rainbow over the house. A good omen… Yes, that was exactly what it was. Parents who loved her, siblings that would do anything for her, a second chance – if that wasn't a good sign, she didn't know what was.

Joe suddenly ruffled her now messy wet hair, and Frank threw his arm around her shoulders. She smiled at them while accepting a towel from her father at the door.

Fenton ushered them in and had them run upstairs to change into dry clothes. They came back down not long afterward, and sat at the dining room table. Laura appeared shortly from the kitchen with three mugs of hot chocolate. Two were already on the table.

Mr. and Mrs. Hardy sat down with their kids as they all enjoyed the hot drinks. Laura was fussing over Beth's still disheveled hair and Fenton discussed what he'd learned from the police with the boys.

Beth sipped her drink and looked around at her family, smiling slightly on the outside, but beaming inwardly. Her brothers had been right.

She had made mistakes, but she was a good person despite them – heck, she'd come out stronger _because _of some of them. Even if she did feel guilty on occasion, and sometimes the pain of her past still threatened to drag her down, she wasn't going to give up. She had a new life now, with a clean slate. She'd never forget her old life, but she knew now that it was time to stop remembering the past so much and to move on with her future. And oh what a bright future it was.


	8. Chapter 8

**Rae Prite**

**Remembering the Years**

**Epilogue**

A shadowy figure stood in front of the window in a lavish office, watching the crowded streets of New York twenty stories below with the air of someone who owned the city. Which wasn't true – his 'company' only owned about a third of it.

He took a long drag on a cigarette held between his long fingers. His other hand was placed nonchalantly in the pocket of his pinstriped Armani suit pants. Behind the figure was an ornate desk with his suit jacket thrown casually over the leather chair.

The walls of the office were decorated in a classic, seventeenth century theme, with heavy expensive drapes beside the windows and priceless paintings hung with precision. The room exuded power, wealth and status – the three most important things in the shadowy figure's life.

Suddenly the heavy oak door swung open and two men entered. The first was tall, thin and swarthy with a cruel face. The second was short, husky and red haired. The two men stopped about a yard in front of the desk, and waited for the figure at the window to speak first.

"Have you located the girl?" the figure asked without turning from the window. It was clear from his commanding tone that he was in charge.

The taller man spoke first, his voice thick with a Russian accent. "We found her. But there has been a slight snag."

The boss said nothing and took another puff of smoke.

Taking that as a cue, the red haired man said, "we don't know how, but she figured out who her family is. She's with them now. We haven't been able to get close to her. She's always with at least one or more of them." The man spoke with a distinct Long Island inflection.

The figure sighed and looked at his cigarette regretfully, now burned down to the butt. He turned and extinguished it in a gold ashtray on the desk.

"I'm surprised at you two," he said, turning his back on them while he slipped on his jacket. "You're some of my best operatives. Highly skilled, specially trained, paid well…" He sat down in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. "So, tell me, then why is it that you cannot perform _a simple extraction job?_" he shouted angrily, pounding his fist on the desk.

"We're trying," the Long Island man whined. "It ain't easy. They never leave her alone for long and she hasn't left the house in the three days we've been staking it out. By the looks of things, she's been there at least a week."

"I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses!" the boss yelled. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes while rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I want results, damn it. If we don't get that girl back, sixteen years of work will have been wasted."

"I do not understand why this is important," the Russian man said, lifting an eyebrow. "We have planted the evidence we need to cover our tracks, and Taylor will soon be in police custody given time and the right anonymous tips. Nothing is linked back to us. He is free to take the fall. Why do you want this girl so much?"

The boss leaned back in his chair and looked out the giant bay windows again for a long moment. Finally, he replied. "The girl is important, because she is the key to my revenge. Without her, I'll have wasted countless resources and time for nothing."

"Revenge?" The red haired man asked, confused. "What did the girl ever do to you?"

A pause. "Not her… Her father," The boss smiled wickedly. "Fenton Hardy, the famous private investigator, poked his nose into my business one too many times. Sixteen years ago, when he managed to shut down an entire gang I had working for me in Florida smuggling arms, I decided it was time he knew his place. His wife, at the time, was expecting their third child. It was the perfect opportunity to hit Hardy right where it would hurt the most. I had Taylor, who at the time was feeding me information from inside the NYPD, take the child and raise her as his niece under a cruel hand. That girl was the same one I want you to retrieve now."

The Russian frowned. "Why is this? Why did you not kill her then and send the body back in a box? Why wait?"

The boss smirked and eyed his underlings for a long moment. "Ever heard the phrase 'Revenge is a dish best served cold'?" He chuckled. "How much colder can you get than sixteen years and a traumatically scarred daughter? Now you see why I need her back – my revenge is not yet complete. The only way I can truly make Fenton Hardy pay for the trouble he has caused me again and again over the years, is to see the look on his face as I slit his daughter's throat."

"Your instructions are these: find the girl, grab her, and bring her to me. If anyone gets in your way, well," the boss shrugged. "Use your imagination."


End file.
